UnConference 2018 Lays Foundation for the Energy System of the Future

innogy Innovation Hub, which invests in and mentors start-ups and is an affiliate of German energy company innogy SE, has concluded its annual UnConference in Berlin. Held on Thursday, 4th October, the UnConference attracted around 400 business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors and start-ups to engage, share ideas and explore new opportunities to co-create the energy system of the future.

This was the fourth edition of the UnConference, which is designed to explore innogy Innovation Hub’s vision that new technologies, business models and consumption patterns will fundamentally redefine the energy industry, driven by decarbonisation, decentralisation, digitisation and democratisation. The UnConference brings together the groups that have the potential to build this future to explore potential joint business opportunities and collaborations. Among the topics being discussed were mobility, human-machine interaction, smart cities, cybersecurity and the digital revolution.

Among the participants were more than 80 start-ups from innogy Innovation Hub’s €150 million portfolio including: SOLshare, which established the world’s first peer-to-peer solar energy grid in Bangladesh; Shine, which provides innovative software to manage household energy consumption and productions; MotionWerk, which provides an open and secure blockchain-based infrastructure for e-mobility businesses; and BeeRides, a car-sharing platform based on unused vehicles left at airports.

“Rather than focus on specific areas of the energy market and incremental technological advances, we instead start with what we see as the fundamental technological trends that will shape the energy system in the coming decades,” said Thomas Birr, SVP Innovation & Business Transformation, innogy SE and CEO of innogy Innovation Hub. “For example, buildings and machines will ultimately engage with each other autonomously and largely without human intervention. How can we ensure that this machine powered economy works efficiently and for the benefit of people? These are the kinds of questions we’ve been exploring at the UnConference.”

For more information on the UnConference, visit: https://wpp.admiralcloud.com/innogy-sp/a/6a8c1338c61ac4d18ef171/#269382

About
innogy Innovation Hub believes that new technologies, business models and consumption patterns will redefine the energy market of the future. We believe this future will be driven by four core global trends; decarbonisation, decentralisation, digitisation and democratisation. innogy Innovation Hub’s mission is to drive this vision for the future of energy by being a sector disruptor: by identifying the game-changing technologies, ideas, individuals and businesses that will help build that future, wherever they are, providing funding, mentoring and a platform for co-creation, collaboration and convergence.

innogy Innovation Hub has created a €150m portfolio through investing in disruptive individuals, start-ups and early stage businesses and provided opportunities for 80+ start-up and scale-up companies to collaborate. It has innovation teams in Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv, London and Berlin.

innogy Innovation Hub is funded by innogy SE, a leading German energy company, with revenues of around €43 billion (2017), more than 42,000 employees and activities in 16 countries. For more information visit: https://innovationhub.innogy.com